


wreckage

by missabigailhobbs



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Emotional Constipation, Hurt/Comfort, Injured Hux, M/M, Minor Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-20
Updated: 2017-02-20
Packaged: 2018-09-25 17:25:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,502
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9834032
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/missabigailhobbs/pseuds/missabigailhobbs
Summary: Pride cometh before the fall.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [klismaphilia](https://archiveofourown.org/users/klismaphilia/gifts).



> This is a birthday fic for symphorophilian/klismaphilia. I hope it's everything you wanted! As always, I am on tumblr at missabigailhobbs and I'd love for you to come say hi.
> 
> Many thanks to gaygalaxyguy on tumblr for being a super-great beta! I really appreciate you <3

For as long as he could remember, Hux had not been allowed to be weak. Stand straight, Armitage, stiff upper lip and keep your shoulders straight, boy, keep your uniform ironed and your shoes shined or you’re as useless as your pathetic mother. As a young man, Armitage had spent every night lying flat on his back, eyes closed and wishing he was perfect. Wishing he could rip out his traitorous, sickly heart that threatened to beat out of his chest when he ran alongside the other boys at the academy, when his instructors berated him and tears pricked at his eyes - then he wished he had been born an automaton, someone who could function flawlessly at all times. He wished he could replace his fragile bones and fallible muscles with durasteel, that which would never rust or fail him as his own form often did.

Through sheer force of will, Hux had risen through the ranks of the First Order until he attained the rank of General, in charge of a star destroyer, the size of which would put even the super-star destroyers of the Old Republic to shame. Unfortunately, he had also been put in charge of managing the irascible Kylo Ren, a walking disaster and liability. Their relationship had blossomed, mostly through anger that burned hot in the crucible of living in close quarters until it alchemized into something more like tolerance, and maybe even the occasional pleasure of convenience. Besides which, Kylo Ren had a huge cock, and Hux was only human, as much as he wished he wasn’t. Even then he would not allow his body to betray him. It was clinical, as quick as possible, with Hux only offering Kylo the briefest of wipe-downs before politely and firmly asking him to excuse himself. When they had sex, he had to be in charge, as he was in every aspect of his life. He often tied Kylo to the bed - he was aware the man could free himself if he so chose, but he never did, and for that Hux was grateful. He had always felt his bedroom proclivities were a sign of his own weakness, that he couldn’t even be completely in charge there, but he shoved it down, kept stuffing it down because he couldn’t let himself be anything less than perfect. If he let one little crack show through, if the facade broke for even a moment, the entire illusion would shatter and he would be a broken man, unable to get out of bed, much less deserve his title and his position.

It was only a matter of time before the levy broke. It had been a long four weeks, 18-hour work cycles of endless tedium. Ren had been on-planet, blessedly, so Hux had not had to deal with his temper, but had been unable to find relief in Kylo’s body. He hadn’t meant to do it, but he had just broken down. Crushed under the weight of his failures, inadequacies, _imperfections_ , he began to weep. He sobbed, shoving his datapad aside to protect it from damage, burying his face in his arms. He had no idea how long he stayed bent like that, prostrated over his desk, crying like a child, until he heard a quiet hiss of the door behind him, a polite cough.

“General?” Captain Phasma asked, hands behind her back in a relaxed parade rest. “Are you feeling quite alright?”

Hux sat straight up, wiping his face. “Yes! Quite alright. I’ll have a medical droid make sure I’m in good working order later,” he said sharply. “Did you need something?”

“Yes, General. Kylo Ren and his troops have returned. They were able to destroy the rebel base. We’ll be having a debriefing meeting in two hours, on Deck E. That’s all.”

Hux nodded, scraping his fingers through his hair. “Thank you, Phasma. I will see you there.” Hux made a decision then. He would never, ever be weak again.

 

——————————————————————————————–

 

The second night after the mission, Kylo tried to push against him in a quiet maintenance hallway, and Hux shoved him back hard. “Take care of yourself,” he hissed, eyes flashing. “You’re not my responsibility anymore. Find someone else to take care of your needs. I have better things to do.” He stormed off and they did not speak again, except in the morning and evening cycle meetings, for three months.

A specially appointed Admiral on orders from the highest ranks of the Order came to inspect the Finalizer, scoffing at every turn, causing Hux to grind his teeth so hard he thought they might crack. When the man came to his office for the final briefing, he insulted Hux, criticizing his plans for Starkiller Base as “all theory with no practical application. Just look at what happened to the Death Star project, both times! Years of work and untold resources poured into a vanity project of the Empire, destroyed in a moment. We must abandon the idea of destruction from on high.”

The admiral sneered at Hux. “But you would not be familiar with the concept of actually getting your hands dirty, would you?” He gestured at Hux’s hands, sheathed as always in gloves but they both knew underneath the skin was pale, uncalloused, completely unused to toil. “You don’t deserve your rank,” he spat. “And I will be making recommendations to Order leadership that your _‘Starkiller’_ project be defunded immediately.” The man left with a stomping of boots against the metal of the Finalizer’s floors and it took all of Hux’s willpower not to order a sabotage to the admiral’s ship on the way out. But to be so petty would show emotion, would be weak, and Hux could not allow that.

———————————————————————————————

 

Less than six months after the Admiral’s fateful visit, an opportunity arose for Hux to join the ground troops in a real mission. Squad leaders were running thin, and this mission required a certain level of diplomacy that stormtroopers simply lacked. He dressed in battle black, a new uniform that he had never had occasion to wear. It lacked the bulk of his overcoat, and he felt dangerously exposed.

Standing at the back of the stormtrooper formation, he held the bar over his head as the transport ship rattled from the Finalizer’s bay to the ground. He closed his eyes for a moment, praying that this would be his chance to prove himself in battle, to be a real General rather than a theoretical one.

Rather than being the political meeting they had been expecting, as soon as they landed it was a bloodbath. The first four rows of troopers were killed as soon as their boots touched the soil, screaming as they were flung to the side by powerful blaster beams. Hux’s eyes widened - he had never seen death so close, so personal before. He trained the troops, of course, indoctrinating them to be willing to die for the cause, but never before had he heard a man’s last breath whistling through ruined lungs. Yet he could not be weak. He could not back down.

Pulling his blaster, he stormed into the fray, taking down as many of the enemy as he could before he felt a beam pierce his abdomen, spearing him through his body just below his left lung, directly through his stomach. One inch higher and he would have been dead immediately, rasping and bleeding out here on this godsforsaken planet.

As it was, he collapsed to his knees, trying to staunch the bleeding but there was nothing, he was so exposed, he was still going to die here, a failed general unable to command his troops or even able to save himself. He watched the bodies falling around him, his vision and hearing fading to thuds and smears of color as he laid there, bright red hair standing out among the white and black of streaked and dirty uniforms. He felt a brief sensation of being lifted, and then he passed utterly into the void.

 

————————————————————————————————————–

 

It was six weeks before Hux truly woke again. He was babbling, incoherent at most hours of the day, drugged up on so many medications just to keep him alive. Even now, the doctors feared he might succumb to infection or complications from surgery.

The stomach acid had ruined his digestive system, burning through intestines and spreading rapidly through the abdominal cavity, beyond even the help of bacta - he’d had five surgeries so far, and he would still never be the same. The milk-white skin of his stomach was puckered and jagged, his torso wrapped in sterile white bandages that were changed religiously four times a day by medical droids as the oozing from his wounds soiled the gauze. It was only by no small miracle he was even alive, but his mind had been shattered by the devastating loss of over a hundred troopers in mere minutes and his chance to prove himself as a leader of men.

“Gotta come up with a new plan,” he muttered, turning over in his bed, heedless of the spike of pain that shot through him, dulled by the painkillers being dripped into his arm regularly. “I got them all killed, everyone killed, gotta work, gotta… bring me a kriffing datapad!” he snapped at one doctor, who merely eyed the General, nodded, and then promptly ignored him. They all felt sorry for their fallen leader, but he was raving now, his mind clearly ruined by the intensity of battle. Hux had been a tactician, not a foot soldier, and the attempt to prove otherwise had been his downfall.

No decisions had been made about what should be done with him yet, but there were whispers in the highest echelons of the Order that Hux would be quietly disposed of on his home planet of Arkanis and forgotten about, left to babble to himself in peace.

For six weeks, Hux had had no visitors, but when he awoke next, slightly more lucid because the doctors had decided to scale back his pain medicine regimen, he found a large, firm body in the bed with him.

He stared at Kylo, bewildered. He thought for a moment that perhaps the Knight was a hallucination, another fever dream, like the ones he’d been having of watching men die over and over again, screaming and trying to breathe as their lungs filled with blood, gurgling over and staining the ground where they fell with blood.

“What are you doing here?” he asked after a moment of silence, utterly baffled.

Kylo, who was dressed casually and unmasked, raised an eyebrow at him. “Clearly, I’ve come to see you. I know you told me we were… “ He shook his head. “That you weren’t interested, and that’s fine. But they told me you nearly died. That you’ll be dealing with this for a long time… I went down to the planet after the first wave, where you were - um. Well, I went down with the Knights and another squad and we were able to capture the rebels. You’ll be glad to know they’ve all been put to death, after we extracted as much information as we could from them.”

Hux was slightly gratified to learn that the rebel scum who had killed so many of his men and disabled him had been dealt with swiftly. He nodded, stiff. “Thank you. Why are you in my bed?”

“You were shivering,” Kylo answered simply, hesitating a moment before stroking a hand through Hux’s hair. It wasn’t quite as clean as usual, being that it was only possible to wash his hair in a basin instead of a proper ‘fresher, but the touch still felt… nice.

Hux looked Kylo in the eye for a moment and then nodded, allowing it to continue. He sighed, his eyes closing as Kylo lulled him with the petting of his hair, the quiet sound of his breathing, the warmth of being close to another human being again, a living person, a whole person.

“I guess I’ll never be perfect now,” Hux mumbled as another dose of pain medication hit him, washing through his system like nectar from the gods. “You think they can just replace all my insides with metal?”

“None of us are perfect, Hux,” Kylo replied quietly, not wanting to disturb him too much. This level of emotional intimacy was far beyond anything he’d ever seen from Hux before, even in the throes of passion. “As much as we all try to.”

“I’m scared,” Hux whispered after a long beat, reaching up to twine his fingers in the front of Kylo’s shirt. Kylo nodded, knowing what he meant. The fear of never being good enough to satisfy yourself, much less your masters or your family. Of failing those you cared most about. “I can’t be weak, Kylo, I can’t-”

“Shh,” Kylo soothed him. “It’s okay. You don’t have to be everything. You’re amazing at what you do, and no one could ever take your place. But you shouldn’t try to go swing around a lightsaber any time soon, do you understand? You don’t need to be so perfect. You’re good enough. You’re more than good enough for me.”

Hux was silent, waiting for the first intense wave of pain medication to pass over him, allow his tongue to work without slurring his words. “Thank you,” he said quietly. It wasn’t a miracle by any means, but it felt more like a revelation. At very least, a benediction, permission to be human instead of hating his own flesh for its failings. His body was still lying broken in a medbay bed, crammed in with an overlarge man, but his mind was growing clearer, and that would be his weapon, the tool he would use to dig himself from the ashes of his ruination.

He would devise the greatest weapon ever known, bigger and better than anything the galaxy had ever seen. It would put the Empire’s Death Star to shame, it would bring down any planet that showed the hints of rebellion, the galaxy would _fall to its knees before the First Order_ and if they did not obey, they would be obliterated. No need for deaths of soldiers on the ground if you can cast down hellfire from above, after all.

He grinned, a wild look in his eye, plans turning over in his fevered brain. Kylo was concerned but kissed him on the forehead anyway, holding Hux around his shoulders and pulling him in a little tighter.

From the wreckage of his damaged body, of his failed experiment, Armitage Hux would rise, and he would be the most formidable man in the galaxy. And absolutely no one, not even the Supreme Leader himself, would be able to stop him.

There might be so much blood on his hands he would never be able to wash it clean, but he would avenge himself if it took his dying breath to do so.

He smiled, baring his teeth. “It’s going to be _perfect_.”


End file.
